THE SPRING ISSUE

Maggie Lindemann

Not Just a Pretty Girl

Growing up with social media for the average teen can be difficult when your peers have direct, 24-hour access to publicly scrutinize. However, for the 18-year-old musician and Instagram star, Maggie Lindemann, public scrutiny is not only an everyday occurrence, it is exponentially amplified with nearly 2 million followers. Her latest sultry pop single, “Pretty Girl,” is about feeling boxed-in when commenters dismiss her as just “pretty.” She seeks to break the chains of the diminishing label so she can be viewed as more than the sum of her physical parts.

Growing up in Dallas, Texas, Lindemann was frequently misunderstood and often bullied for her presence on social media. However, it was ultimately social media that kickstarted her music career when her future manager discovered an Instagram post of her singing, prompting her to pursue the career path in Los Angeles. Now the spotlight seems to suit Lindemann, who fearlessly uses her online presence as a means to express herself musically and emotionally. In a tearful confession, she publicly came out as bisexual, feeling that it was important for fans to see her living her life authentically. She’s released several singles, including “Knocking On Your Heart” and “Things,” both of which were top 25 hits on the iTunes Alternative Chart within a day of their releases. As her massive fanbase follows her musical and personal growth, Maggie Lindemann is becoming a symbol of hope for her peers.

In your song, Pretty Girl, it had an empowered, feminist message about how too often, girls are valued for their appearance. How have you personally dealt with this?

I think being on social media, a lot of the time people are judging you based on what you look like and based on what you put up onto social media. I have a lot of people commenting saying, “Well, what does she do?” and then someone else is like “Oh, she’s just pretty.” And I think that people need to move onto something deeper than people’s physical appearances. I want people to see me as an artist and as someone they can relate to. I’m just a normal person, too.

So when you first went on tour and you got to have an in-person experience with your fans, what was that experience like, seeing your fans outside of cyberspace?

Oh it’s definitely amazing being able to see it in person, it’s so different when you’re actually there experiencing it. Someone came up to me in my LA show and they gave me this ring that belonged to their grandma, who had passed away. They said that their grandma said to give it to someone that means a lot to you. So she gave it to me, and she cried, and she said, “I just want to let you know how important you are to me.” When people approach me and say “you helped me with this” or “you saved me” or they tell me about an experience they had and how I helped them with it, it makes me feel really good that I’m able to be there for them and that they can look to me for help. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right.

What do you want people to take away from the experience of listening to your music?

I want them to know that they can follow their dreams, and they can have a voice. They don’t have to fight, they can be themselves.